Panasonic DMC-G1 preliminary performance figures posted!By
Zig Weidelich, The Imaging Resource
(Thursday, October 2, 2008 - 18:10 EDT)Early results from a prototype of the Panasonic G1 Micro Four Thirds camera are in: It's pretty responsive...We've gotten our hands on a Panasonic G1 prototype that's final hardware/late firmware, and run our normal timing tests on it. With the 14-45mm kit lens attached, we found that the Lumix G1 met Panasonic's claims for shutter lag at the wide angle end of the range, but was slightly slower at the tele end. Regardless, it's quite a bit faster than the vast majority of digicams, in both shutter lag and continuous shooting speed. - And of course, the Panasonic G1's larger Four Thirds-format sensor will produce better high-ISO images than digicams are capable of. (We can't show you sample images from this level of firmware, but can say that we've generally been impressed with what we've seen. It isn't an imager that will compete with a Nikon D300 or Canon 50D, but is a big step up from what consumers have struggled with from digicams. - And that's exactly who the Panasonic G1 is aimed at.)